The Velvet Syrian Revolution

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A call for the president to bring about change

By Dr Osama Kadi

The Syria people can no longer bear denial, primitive misinformation, or the use of propaganda that insults our intelligence. We can no longer stomach silly, false accusations such as those of presidential adviser Buthaina Shaaban, for which history will someday make her accountable. These gigantic blunders, to which the Syrian people are silent because they are powerless, have become insupportable.

Had Shaaban been truthful, she would have reported to the president the real beat of the revolutionary drums: loud calls for freedom. She should have admitted that the people’s demands have been ignored for decades. Syrians have been treated worse than slaves, for it is not right in any secular or divine law to kill slaves; the religious approach calls for them to be freed. As for spilling their blood, wasting their freedom and resources – that is a savage, barbarian policy.

The president has chosen a bad entourage; his top advisors are the worst. They have failed to provide good advice relating to the country’s economic and political situation and have cheated him, even in security terms. The Syrian crisis of confidence is not confined to that between the government and the people, but has spread to the halls of the presidential palace, also between the president and his close entourage.

At this historical moment, we need to create an independent national consultative “crisis” committee. It should have its own spokesperson who should not be involved in its formation, and it should consist of the best Syrian thinkers and technocrats, in the Syrian homeland and abroad. Its role should be to supervise the essential changes needed in the Syrian security, military, political, economic, social, educational and religious structures. It should be given the highest degree of protection, just in case the state’s security branches agents target it. It must establish an agenda quickly, and set up a timetable informing the president of a schedule for implementing and executing this agenda in timely fashion, without delay.

I believe that the first practical steps to be taken are: the president’s resignation from the Baath party; the lifting of the state of emergency; allowing peaceful demonstrations and freeing all political prisoners. To follow; the cancellation of Article Eight of the constitution that gives the Baath Party the monopoly of power; cancelling Article 13 which states that the Syrian state economy “is a planned socialist economy”, and introducing good governance in a five-year plan.

Syria should benefit from the five principles of the German model for a social market economy in order to achieve its own economic miracle, by not separating liberal economy from political liberalism, within a context including an independent media and judiciary.

The president may form a new party, like the Turkish Justice and Development Party, benefiting from the Turkish experience and seeking advice from Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a friend of the Syrian people. He may ask the latter to provide guarantees in this regard, and to supervise Syrian elections to safeguard their integrity, or by allowing institutions of Syrian civil society to monitor the elections, after dismissing such people as the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Diyala al-Haj Aref – who was like a branch of the government security forces herself.

History will record that she obstructed the institutions of civil society and has been an obstacle in the face of developing Syria’s civil society. While there are more than 40,000 civil society organizations (CSO) in Morocco, Syria, thanks to Aref’s efforts, has fewer than 1,000. They are not permitted even to issue a yearly newsletter. Aref, in addition, was behind the closure of the office to fight unemployment, which created hundreds of thousands of job opportunities.

Preparation should then be made for adjusting the constitution so as to launch free and genuine elections, after allowing the formation of political parties. Arbitration must be left to the election boxes. This should also come after dissolving the Ministry of Information and dismissing such people as its minister, Mohsen Bilal, who brought the Syrian information system to its lowest level ever. The current performance of the state media is a great example of that, especially when it comes to Syrian state TV. The ministry’s budget should be re-allocated to permit the fostering of a free press.

All state intelligence and security branches should be disbanded, keeping only the two establishments of army and police.  These must employ professionals enjoying integrity and a good reputation. The presidential guards brigade must be dissolved, and its brave soldiers –  of whom Syria is proud – reassigned to army units which may need them to capture the armed gangs or so-called “shabeeha” (villain ghosts), who have damaged the reputation of Syria and have tried to terrorize civilians for years. They will not defeat the brave and heroic presidential guards, and Syrians would always cherish the latter for achieving such a task.

A completely independent committee should be formed to call those engaging in corruption to account, giving them a short period to return all illegitimate earnings they had obtained from the state treasury. A general amnesty may apply to them in order to enable them to start a new chapter with the Syrian people, who have had a corrupt cartel imposed upon.

A group of Syrian economists wrote a report called “Exploring the Future of Syria 2025” in collaboration with the United Nations development programme; this has been completely ignored. The report describes the Syrian situation realistically, offering reformist solutions and scenarios in a volume consisting of 13,000 pages, written by more than 60 experts. It is worthwhile to consult it at this historical and critical stage, in an atmosphere of freedom that Syrians have thus far lacked.

The task of a crisis committee would be to lead a velvet Syrian revolution, one that would not shed anymore precious Syrian blood, and to place Syria on the road to true freedom. It is hoped that the presidential palace will find individuals whose credibility is not marred, who are not associated with the wrongful history that Syrians can no longer bear to live with, but figures who can help the Syrian people create new and honourable values.

Osama Kadi is the president of the Syrian Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.